Toronto Film Festival Reviews: “Causeway” & “The Menu”

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CAUSEWAY (Apple – November 4):  After a decade as one of Hollywood’s biggest stars, there was reason to wonder whether the Jennifer Lawrence who first came to prominence with the Sundance movie Winter’s Bone still had a gritty indie-movie gear.  She returns to those roots with Causeway, for which she also serves as a lead producer, and seems invigorated by the chance to stretch unused muscles.  Causeway, which marks the film debut of theater director Lila Neugebauer, feels small enough to be more Sundance than Toronto, a compact 92-minute character study about two people struggling for a way past their traumas.  Lynsey (Lawrence) is just back from Afghanistan, where she worked as an engineer on water systems and where her vehicle was blown up by an IED, leaving her with both physical and neurological injuries that may or may not be temporary.  She returns to her home town of New Orleans, where she lives with her loving but unreliable mother (Linda Emond), and where the damage runs deeper than physical injury.  When her car breaks down, the mechanic she encounters is James (Brian Tyree Henry), a kind man who has his own dark memories.  Both of them are guarded and distrustful, and longing for someone to truly see them.  Lawrence and Henry are two of the best actors around, capable of expressing streams of emotions in a few seconds of screen time, and Neugebauer and screenwriters Ottessa Moshfegh, Luke Goebel and Elizabeth Sanders are wise enough to let them cook.  The emphasis is less on plot than on incremental moments that enhance the characters.  That isn’t to say that Neugebauer neglects the technical side of the film:  it was shot by Diego Garcia, whose credits include Wildlife and Tokyo Vice, and the production was designed by Jack Fisk, a master since the early days of Terence Malick and Brian DePalma.  But sometimes simplicity can accomplish as much as spectacle, and Causeway clears the path for its actors to connect to each other, and to us.

THE MENU (Searchlight – November 18):  The trailer for The Menu gives away the initial twist, so there’s no need for compunction about revealing that the ultra-gourmet restaurant presided over by Chef Slowik (Ralph Fiennes), located on an isolated island and catering exclusively to the very rich, is a trap.  The guests, who include venal and clueless characters played by Nicholas Hoult, John Leguizamo, Judith Light, Janet McTeer, Reed Birney and Arturo Castro, are going to be victims of the Chef and his extremely obedient staff, headed by Elsa (Hong Chau).  And then there’s a wild card:  a woman identified as Margot (Anya Taylor-Joy), who was the last minute substitute plus-one of Hoult’s foodie character, and who has skills of her own.  Mark Mylod has recently been directing episodes of Succession, so he knows his way around well-educated rich beasts, and The Menu is a smooth if inconsistent nasty entertainment.  The script by Seth Reiss and Will Tracy lurches among tones, now Bunuelian satire, now broad comedy (Hoult almost seems to still be playing his character from The Great, and there’s a downright odd visual reference to Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory), now a horror thriller, now a commentary that wishes to be taken quite seriously.  The movie constantly reminds us that the Chef prides himself on the logic and storytelling of his menus from first dish to last, but The Menu can’t claim the same.  In the end, the most memorable moments are the scenes shared by Taylor-Joy and Fiennes, who seem to be in a sharper, more nuanced film of their own.  The Menu won’t give viewers indigestion, but nor does it earn itself Michelin stars.